"Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;
And let us all to meditation."
--2 Henry VI.

That night after twelve o'clock Mary Garth relieved the watch in
Mr. Featherstone's room, and sat there alone through the small hours.
She often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure,
notwithstanding the old man's testiness whenever he demanded
her attentions. There were intervals in which she could sit
perfectly still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light.
The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn
existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires,
the straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving
her contempt. Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse
herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for,
having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely
to be arranged for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time
in astonishment and annoyance at that fact. And she had already
come to take life very much as a comedy in which she had a proud,
nay, a generous resolution not to act the mean or treacherous part.
Mary might have become cynical if she had not had parents whom
she honored, and a well of affectionate gratitude within her, which
was all the fuller because she had learned to make no unreasonable claims.

She sat to-night revolving, as she was wont, the scenes of the day,
her lips often curling with amusement at the oddities to which her fancy
added fresh drollery: people were so ridiculous with their illusions,
carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies
opaque while everybody else's were transparent, making themselves
exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow
under a lamp they alone were rosy. Yet there were some illusions
under Mary's eyes which were not quite comic to her. She was
secretly convinced, though she had no other grounds than her close
observation of old Featherstone's nature, that in spite of his
fondness for having the Vincys about him, they were as likely to be
disappointed as any of the relations whom he kept at a distance.
She had a good deal of disdain for Mrs. Vincy's evident alarm lest
she and Fred should be alone together, but it did not hinder her
from thinking anxiously of the way in which Fred would be affected,
if it should turn out that his uncle had left him as poor as ever.
She could make a butt of Fred when he was present, but she did
not enjoy his follies when he was absent.

Yet she liked her thoughts: a vigorous young mind not overbalanced
by passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches
its own powers with interest. Mary had plenty of merriment within.

Her thought was not veined by any solemnity or pathos about
the old man on the bed: such sentiments are easier to affect
than to feel about an aged creature whose life is not visibly
anything but a remnant of vices. She had always seen the most
disagreeable side of Mr. Featherstone. he was not proud of her,
and she was only useful to him. To be anxious about a soul that is
always snapping at you must be left to the saints of the earth;
and Mary was not one of them. She had never returned him a
harsh word, and had waited on him faithfully: that was her utmost.
Old Featherstone himself was not in the least anxious about his soul,
and had declined to see Mr. Tucker on the subject.

To-night he had not snapped, and for the first hour or two he lay
remarkably still, until at last Mary heard him rattling his bunch of
keys against the tin box which he always kept in the bed beside him.
About three o'clock he said, with remarkable distinctness,
"Missy, come here!"

Mary obeyed, and found that he had already drawn the tin box
from under the clothes, though he usually asked to have this done
for him; and he had selected the key. He now unlocked the box,
and, drawing from it another key, looked straight at her with eyes
that seemed to have recovered all their sharpness and said,
"How many of 'em are in the house?"

"You mean of your own relations, sir," said Mary, well used
to the old man's way of speech. He nodded slightly and she went on.

"Oh ay, they stick, do they? and the rest--they come every day,
I'll warrant--Solomon and Jane, and all the young uns?
They come peeping, and counting and casting up?"

"Not all of them every day. Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule are here
every day, and the others come often."

The old man listened with a grimace while she spoke, and then said,
relaxing his face, "The more fools they. You hearken, missy.
It's three o'clock in the morning, and I've got all my faculties
as well as ever I had in my life. I know all my property,
and where the money's put out, and everything. And I've made
everything ready to change my mind, and do as I like at the last.
Do you hear, missy? I've got my faculties."

He now lowered his tone with an air of deeper cunning. "I've made
two wills, and I'm going to burn one. Now you do as I tell you.
This is the key of my iron chest, in the closet there. You push well
at the side of the brass plate at the top, till it goes like a bolt:
then you can put the key in the front lock and turn it. See and
do that; and take out the topmost paper--Last Will and Testament--
big printed."

"I cannot help that, sir. I will not let the close of your life
soil the beginning of mine. I will not touch your iron chest
or your will." She moved to a little distance from the bedside.

The old man paused with a blank stare for a little while, holding the
one key erect on the ring; then with an agitated jerk he began
to work with his bony left hand at emptying the tin box before him.

"Missy," he began to say, hurriedly, "look here! take the money--
the notes and gold--look here--take it--you shall have it all--
do as I tell you."

He made an effort to stretch out the key towards her as far
as possible, and Mary again retreated.

"I will not touch your key or your money, sir. Pray don't ask me
to do it again. If you do, I must go and call your brother."

He let his hand fall, and for the first time in her life Mary
saw old Peter Featherstone begin to cry childishly. She said,
in as gentle a tone as she could command, "Pray put up your money,
sir;" and then went away to her seat by the fire, hoping this
would help to convince him that it was useless to say more.
Presently he rallied and said eagerly--

"Wait till broad daylight, sir, when every one is stirring.
Or let me call Simmons now, to go and fetch the lawyer? He can be
here in less than two hours."

"Lawyer? What do I want with the lawyer? Nobody shall know--I say,
nobody shall know. I shall do as I like."

"Let me call some one else, sir," said Mary, persuasively. She did
not like her position--alone with the old man, who seemed to show
a strange flaring of nervous energy which enabled him to speak again
and again without falling into his usual cough; yet she desired
not to push unnecessarily the contradiction which agitated him.
"Let me, pray, call some one else."

"You let me alone, I say. Look here, missy. Take the money.
You'll never have the chance again. It's pretty nigh two hundred--
there's more in the box, and nobody knows how much there was.
Take it and do as I tell you."

Mary, standing by the fire, saw its red light falling on the old man,
propped up on his pillows and bed-rest, with his bony hand holding
out the key, and the money lying on the quilt before him. She never
forgot that vision of a man wanting to do as he liked at the last.
But the way in which he had put the offer of the money urged her to
speak with harder resolution than ever.

"It is of no use, sir. I will not do it. Put up your money.
I will not touch your money. I will do anything else I can to
comfort you; but I will not touch your keys or your money."

"Anything else anything else!" said old Featherstone, with hoarse
rage, which, as if in a nightmare, tried to be loud, and yet was
only just audible. "I want nothing else. You come here--you come here."

Mary approached him cautiously, knowing him too well. She saw him
dropping his keys and trying to grasp his stick, while he looked
at her like an aged hyena, the muscles of his face getting distorted
with the effort of his hand. She paused at a safe distance.

"Let me give you some cordial," she said, quietly, "and try to
compose yourself. You will perhaps go to sleep. And to-morrow
by daylight you can do as you like."

He lifted the stick, in spite of her being beyond his reach,
and threw it with a hard effort which was but impotence.
It fell, slipping over the foot of the bed. Mary let it lie,
and retreated to her chair by the fire. By-and-by she would
go to him with the cordial. Fatigue would make him passive.
It was getting towards the chillest moment of the morning,
the fire had got low, and she could see through the chink between
the moreen window-curtains the light whitened by the blind.
Having put some wood on the fire and thrown a shawl over her,
she sat down, hoping that Mr. Featherstone might now fall asleep.
If she went near him the irritation might be kept up. He had said
nothing after throwing the stick, but she had seen him taking
his keys again and laying his right hand on the money. He did
not put it up, however, and she thought that he was dropping off
to sleep.

But Mary herself began to be more agitated by the remembrance
of what she had gone through, than she had been by the reality--
questioning those acts of hers which had come imperatively and
excluded all question in the critical moment.

Presently the dry wood sent out a flame which illuminated every crevice,
and Mary saw that the old man was lying quietly with his head turned
a little on one side. She went towards him with inaudible steps,
and thought that his face looked strangely motionless; but the next
moment the movement of the flame communicating itself to all objects
made her uncertain. The violent beating of her heart rendered
her perceptions so doubtful that even when she touched him and
listened for his breathing, she could not trust her conclusions.
She went to the window and gently propped aside the curtain and blind,
so that the still light of the sky fell on the bed.

The next moment she ran to the bell and rang it energetically.
In a very little while there was no longer any doubt that Peter
Featherstone was dead, with his right hand clasping the keys,
and his left hand lying on the heap of notes and gold.